


When Words Are Broken, 1 - Safety of Silence

by charlottechill



Series: No Words [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-11
Updated: 2009-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:45:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/pseuds/charlottechill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When young Chris Larabee witnesses sodomy for the first time, he doesn't know what to think--and he's surprised by what he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Words Are Broken, 1 - Safety of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This story kind of started three years ago, and just got finished a week or so back. I tried to look at the culture of the era (late 19th century), and how two grown men might relate to the idea of homosexuality, especially when neither of them had identified the draw of the friend before that time. It was an interesting process, trying to get into that cultural perspective, and I hope I handled it well for these particular characters.
> 
> The characters in question have a 12-year friendship before the beginning of the television series canon, and this story is set early in that friendship.

When Words are Broken  
I. Safety of Silence

_October, 1865  
Wyoming_

"Did you see them two?" Buck hissed, eyes so big and round, Chris could see moonlight reflecting in their whites.

"Yeah, I saw 'em," Chris whispered back. He wished he hadn't. The vision left him cold with shock.

Buck backed them even further away from the stable, then they turned and sneaked the hundred feet back to the empty bunkhouse. Chris didn't want to go in there yet. It smelled of the folks who had ridden out with the herd this afternoon, of sweat and boot leather, tobacco and soap. It smelled of men, and he didn't want the smell of a man clogging his nostrils right at the moment. He dropped to the dirt outside the door and stared blindly up toward the stars.

Buck settled beside him after a moment and, sitting Indian-style, cleared his throat. Swallowed noisily. Tugged at his kerchief.

"Calm down," Chris said, more evenly than his churned-up insides felt. "Wasn't like we were the ones doing it."

Buck, bless him, tried to act nonchalant, though Chris could tell his friend was anything but. "I ain't gonna say a word against how somebody takes care of his needs," Buck said softly, discomfort tightening his voice. "Their business, not ours."

Chris had read about sodomites in the Bible of course, and he knew that cowboy buddies here and there might get up to something he'd never given much thought to, but he hadn't ever seen one. Not one he'd been sure of. "You ever met a man liked other men before?" he asked of Buck, not sure which answer would reassure him more.

"Where would I have?"

"Well, your ma's work and all..." he tried weakly.

"The places my ma worked, men came to cause they wanted women, Chris," Buck said shortly.

The man had a point, but Chris knew he'd have been much happier if Buck knew something, anything at all about this. How could a man look at another man and see… see what Buck saw when he looked at a woman? What Chris himself saw? You didn't ask a man questions like that and survive the answers, did you? Not unless you were sure in the first place? He looked at Buck—maybe a man like Buck would laugh it off, wouldn't even understand it… would have, wouldn't have. Not any more. "How would..." he frowned, thought hard, "how the hell could one man know another wanted something like that?"

"I don't have any idea." After a minute Buck added, "I don't see the point of that, not when there's beautiful women in the world."

Chris shrugged. "Ain't many in Wyoming," he surmised, "beautiful or otherwise."

"I don’t care!" Buck hissed. "There's the memory of women, and pictures of women, and the thought of women, and that's been more than enough for me since I figured out what my prick was for. Hell," he spat, "the day that and my own hand ain't enough in a pinch, you c'n throw the dirt in on my face."

"Settle down," Chris said irritably. "I wasn't sayin' it was all right." He shook his head, but the image still lingered in his mind. "That ain't natural. It ain't natural at all."

"Damned right, it ain't."

Chris returned his eyes to the night sky, but soon enough Buck grated, "I can't get the damned picture out of my head." His voice sounded miserable, and sandy-quiet like breeze through old brush.

"Me neither."

"Oh thank God. I thought I was the only one." Then, "Let's talk about somethin' else."

Chris was profoundly relieved that Buck was upset about this too. Buck had a world-wise way about him when it came to women, whores, and sex in general. Chris didn't think he'd have been able to stand it if Buck had taken this in stride too.

Inspired, Chris whispered, "Tell me again about that gal in Kentucky, the Irish one." She was one of Buck's most bawdy and oft-repeated stories, and only the fact that the details never changed had convinced Chris that the tale was probably true.

"Oh," Buck said, and launched into the tale almost by rote. It was a damned good story, but here Chris was, sitting alone in the dark with his closest friend, with two sodomites mounting each other behind the barn not a hundred yards away. Buck, who had never in the year they'd traveled together had a problem telling the most explicit details of his various adventures with the ladies, stumbled past the part where he unbuttoned her blouse to find the lilac-colored corset underneath before his words dried up.

Chris could still see the men in his mind's eye. Under the too-bright moon, their mouths were sealed together, and Roger's arm was wrapped tight around Sam's neck. Sam, naked as a jay bird with his butt balanced on the edge of an old water barrel, had his legs wrapped just as tight around Roger's waist, and what was going on between them, well, there was only one hole back there that Roger could be up.

He wanted to be sick. He wanted there to be a decent woman or three within twenty miles. Hell, he'd settle for a hog ranch. He wanted something other than Buck's stuttering, masculine voice in the darkness painting poor pictures of a woman's body and a man's fitting together like children's wooden puzzles. Fortunately, after another stuttered effort, Buck dropped the story completely.

"You've done that with women, haven't you?" Chris asked into the silence. "Done them up the backside?"

"Yeah."

"Was it… was it good?"

"Sure it was, but that ain't the same, Chris," he said, sounding almost defensive.

"I didn't say it was!"

The silence thickened again, tense between them like it never had been before.

"You think they'll come back to the bunkhouse, after?" Buck whispered, anxious-sounding.

"Shit." Of course they would. They slept here just like the fourteen men who had ridden out at dawn this morning. Chris caught himself chewing on his knuckle, forced his hand to his lap, and two seconds later found he was chewing on it again. "We'd best get in there and get to sleep 'fore they come in."

"I ain't gonna be able ta sleep in there," Buck said, plaintive and still as squirrelly as a virgin with her knickers off. "Who knows what they'll do?"

"They ain't gonna force themselves on us, Buck," he hissed, though his thoughts ran in the same direction. "We been workin' with 'em nearly four months, and we only just found out. For all we know, they been doin' it since you an' me hired on."

"That s'posed to make me feel better?" Buck griped.

"Shouldn't make you feel worse. All I'm saying is, if it's been going on for awhile they ain't bothered none of us." Then, a minute later he mumbled around his knuckle, "I suppose we could sleep outside."

Quick as a striking snake, Buck leapt up. "I'll get our bed rolls."

A few minutes later, bedded down beneath a spreading oak tree a safe distance from the bunkhouse, Chris felt the thoughts slamming around inside his skull like a mare in a mounting stall. He'd never seen a sodomite. But then, he wouldn't have said that Sam or Roger was one, so maybe he'd seen plenty. They were good bosses, fair men, and as rugged as they came.

He still couldn't believe it. Buck, who more often than not would have turned away from Chris and quietly rubbed himself off before going to sleep, lay on his back, stiff as a corpse, hands clasped in plain view across his chest. Unaccountably, Chris was grateful.

7 - 7 - 7

Three days dragged by, slower than Sunday church. Three painful, disquieting days. Chris tried to act normal while Buck started to talk compulsively about his adventures with women. He wanted to warn Buck about overdoing it, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything that would refer directly to what they had seen. So whenever Buck was out of earshot Chris sighed and made excuses, harping on Buck's twenty-one years and how he seemed to have spent most of them. Roger and Sam were good-natured men, and they'd always taken Buck's tales in stride. Before he'd seen what he had, Chris would have said Roger and Sam enjoyed them as much as most men did, maybe thinking on them later in the dark. But now….

If they'd been able to get their money, Chris figured they'd have sacrificed this last week's pay just to get the hell out of the situation. But Roger and Sam saddled up on the morning of the fourth day to catch up to the herd, while he and Buck stayed behind to keep the animals tended, wait for the ranch owner to come back, and collect their pay. After that they were free to move on to a job Buck had heard about in Colorado.

Something brushed his shoulder and he nearly jumped clean out of his skin. "What the hell?" he cursed, spinning around, but it was only Buck, wearing a long worried frown.

"You think they knew we know?"

Chris shrugged. He didn't think they'd given up their dark knowledge, but it didn't much matter now. They weren't the ones who'd fucked each other.

It just went to show, you could never really know a man. "I sure am happy to see the back of them two," he said quietly. Buck sniggered suddenly and Chris turned, caught the crinkle of amusement in Buck's eyes and the flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. "What?"

"You're happy to see the back of them?"

Chris felt his face tighten with distaste and his gut tighten with disquiet. "Shut up." He didn't walk away though, preferring instead to wait until those two were clean out of sight.

Chewing on his lip for a good minute, and just as the pair's horses disappeared over a rise, Chris decided just to spit out. "What would a man do that for, with another man?" he barely whispered. Though they were all alone, he couldn't bring himself to give the words any louder a voice. It had preyed on him, made him painfully conscious of keeping his butt muscles clenched tight as he sidled around the grounds.

"Damned if I know," Buck answered. "Must be somethin' good to it, from the way they were goin' at it. But I sure as hell can't imagine what a man would see in it."

"Yeah," Chris replied. "Me neither."

Chris had thought things would get back to normal after Roger and Sam left. But the two days that followed were excruciating. Where Buck had nattered on and on proclaiming his love of women to the two funny boys, now he couldn't seem to string two sentences together. The silence between them grew thicker, and Chris caught himself taking covert peeks at Buck's body, and he knew what it felt like to have the serpent in the garden.

He tried, he really tried to put them back on an even footing. He had a tale or two of his own that he attempted to tell late at night, but Buck didn't seem to be listening very well and Chris grew uncomfortable with the sound of his own voice. He even curled on his side and tried to take care of himself once, after they'd gone abed, but his cock wouldn't wake up, didn't even twitch until a vision of Buck bathing in the creek flickered in his mind's eye; he'd jerked his hand away.

The silence was eerie and ominous, and the fact that they were the only people for ten miles around besides the old Mexican housekeeper up in the main house made each hour more oppressive than the last. He knew Buck had caught his furtive glances more than once. He just prayed to God that Buck didn't understand them.

"Mr. Robbins 'll be back tomorrow sometime," Buck said, breaking a silence that had lasted hours. The rancher would be more than satisfied with their care of the place, too: the stables were mucked, horses fed, watered and their coats brushed to a glossy sheen, hay moved up onto wooden rails in the back. They'd brought in the breed cows for something to do, and in a last ditch moment of desperation, put the bunkhouse in order, spit-and-polish clean.

Chris sat in a straight-backed chair in front of the bunkhouse with nothing left to do but wait and watch the sun go down. He glanced over at Buck, staring intently at the somber profile like it would provide him a clue as to what went on behind those soulful blue eyes. Buck turned his head and caught him looking again, that nervous, frightened rabbit look on his face, and their eyes locked for too long. Chris jerked his head and stared at the setting sun until his eyes watered.

He kept staring, long after it was gone, and the brilliant colors faded into that blue that darkens slowly to black. One by one, the stars woke up. A quarter mile in the distance, candles began to flicker behind lace curtains in the main house, but that was the closest light around. The silence was so thick, it felt like molasses sliding over his skin, irritating it, making him itch and want desperately to squirm. But he felt like movement, any movement at all, would bring about his doom. He turned to look at Buck again, found his shadowed face staring right at him, and flinched.

Buck stood up then, a towering silhouette in the heavy dusk. Chris sucked in a breath, more afraid here now than he'd ever been at the prospect of a fight, no matter how big or mean or fast his opponent. His stomach flipped slowly as Buck took two steps forward and stood before him. Of its own volition, his head tilted back against the topmost chair rail as he tried to make out Buck's face in the dark. Quiet and resolute, Buck said, "Somebody's gotta do it."

He didn't know what he had expected, but it wasn't the soft scrape of manly skin tickling the sensitive cleft over his upper lip. It sure as hell wasn't the smoothness of lips almost like a woman's, full and soft but backed by something so not-womanly. He felt frozen where he sat, his hands taking a death-grip on the edges of his chair. Buck's lips trembled, and Chris could only imagine the fear, the courage, the utter stupidity that it took to do what his friend was doing. Buck moved his mouth gently and the bristle of whiskers dragged across Chris's cheek, the feeling as explicit and exciting as that feeling of rubbing his face over a woman's silk corset.

Suddenly he was panting, drawing in great draughts of air, and he wondered for a second how his arm had hooked itself around the back of Buck's neck. He dropped his jaw and pulled Buck closer; Buck's mouth opened wide against his, and the moist seal of their lips held. What was it inside that cavernous mouth that tasted of mint, and musk, and raw sensuality? He didn't know, couldn't say--couldn't _think._ He was too connected to the heat above him, towering over him, and to the heat inside him that spread out like wildfire in all directions. Buck's tongue slipped inside his mouth, firm but gentle, and Chris just knew this was how Buck would introduce his body to a woman.

He growled, squeezed tighter with his arm--it was the only part of him that seemed able to move--and mashed their mouths harder together. And oh, there was nothing womanly at all about the sudden, near-violent aggression of Buck's mouth on his. This was different. It was familiar.

It was essential.

He was as hard as a rock inside his trousers and nothing more than their mouths had touched.

He craved, desperate for more, whatever more might be. Buck knelt down before him and Chris felt hands cup his kneecaps, big palms slide up his thighs and head straight for his crotch. Unreasoning terror made him grab Buck's hands to stop that advance, a defensive action he couldn't explain or deny. Buck jerked like he'd been struck, pulling back as far as Chris's grip on his wrists would let him, and they peered at each other in the shadows of early moonlight. Buck looked anguished, shocked, famished like he'd never been for anything, and Chris had seen him level plenty a hungry look on women. Buck's eyes darted back and forth, tiny movements that telegraphed his vulnerability right alongside his need. The handsome face settled while Chris watched, and he could only imagine what Buck must see, that he'd take that big calming breath, broad shoulders rising once and falling on a shuddering sigh.

Whatever they saw in each other, it was enough, and with malice aforethought that would surely damn him, he loosened his death grip on Buck's wrists. His hands atop Buck's, he dragged those big hands on up his legs. The heat tickled deep into his muscles, like an ember rolled across his skin. One hand, Chris dragged right onto his stiff shaft and the other, over the buttons of his fly. He could make out the whites of Buck's eyes, the long, slow blink that must be hiding something awful, some disgust.

But with their heavy breaths ringing loud in the still air, Buck's fingers worked the first button of his fly. He shivered and sucked in his stomach as Buck methodically opened the others and parted the fabric.

Good God, what they were getting in to… Buck leaned back then, hands returning to Chris's knees, Buck's own knees bumping Chris's boots as they opened slightly on the dirt. As if possessed by some other power, Chris reached down and unbuttoned Buck's pants with more speed and aggression than Buck had shown him, registering the slight softness under the skin of Buck's belly, and a ticklish twitching when the backs of his fingers encountered wiry hairs. The soft, flat belly sucked in when his fingertip touched the petal-soft ridged edge of Buck's cock, and there was something, some power here that he couldn't define or resist. He grasped the shaft, bold, and took in Buck's shuddering breath as his own need swept higher.

Buck's hands urged his ass up off the chair, slid his pants and underdrawers down his thighs. A big calloused hand cupped his cock and Chris bit down on a sound, afraid to let it out.

There, together, with Buck still kneeling before him, they wrapped careful hands around each other's manhoods. Buck's head was bent as, like Chris, he tried to peer into the shadows, seeking a glimpse of what his hand was holding.

"Come up here, Buck," Chris growled, urgent.

Their teeth bumped with this kiss, hard and hot and as urgent as his first fumbling fuck with a neighbor girl in his early teens. After only a few frantic, uncoordinated thrusts, Chris felt it boil up out of him, the lightning shooting from his balls and up out his cock. Buck made a startled sound when the cum hit his hand, and let go Chris's cock, and Chris did groan then, grabbed Buck's hand back and clamped it down, hard, as his come finished off. He pushed Buck back then, caught up in the perversion of it, the erotic thrill, and slid out of the chair until he knelt in the dirt by his partner. He put a hand on Buck's shoulder to steady himself, the shudders still coursing through him, and the steadying grip turned to a caress across the column of sweat-damp throat. His fingers found the rapid, heavy pulse as he reached beneath Buck's cock to his balls, felt their heavy, taut weight in his hand. It felt exactly like and nothing at all like touching his own. Buck's face jerked and twitched in reaction, and Chris wondered what would happen if he eased his hand further back, between Buck's legs. The thought left him fearful and breathless, so brought his hand up to his mouth, smelling the musk, licking his palm before he grabbed Buck's cock in a firm grip. He didn't stop this time, didn't stop pulling, didn't stop looking, didn't stop wallowing in the intensity of this thing between them. Sam and Roger'd have something to answer for, if he ever saw them again.

If he even had the balls to mention it.

Buck grunted, his hips going wild, and Chris understood then why Buck had jerked his hand away; the cum was thick, hot like his own but not, and so unexpected, not coming from his own cock. But he held on tight, grinning fiercely at the shudders he felt coursing through the big body. He'd made that happen, and damned or not, that knowledge felt like stolen fruit, sweet and luscious and all the better for being forbidden.

The urgency quelled by release, Chris was left with a sticky hand and a load of uncertainty. But it was good, and roiling emotion couldn't overcome that knowledge. He laughed, barely a breath—couldn't tell Buck that, the bastard's head was swelled enough already.

"Chris?" Buck's voice sounded like a shadow, so quiet and ephemeral.

"We'd best get to bed."

They stood and Chris listened as Buck put himself to rights, as he himself bent down to wipe his wet hand over the short grass to clean it.

"Where, uh," Buck said, "where're we sleepin'?"

"Don't get any dumber on me," Chris replied. "Where're our damned bedrolls?"

"All right, then," Buck said, heartier. Calmer, maybe.

By the time he entered the bunkhouse, the lantern was lit, the wick low, and Buck already lay sprawled in his clothes atop his mattress. Chris watched him for a moment before he walked right over, bold and sure, and bent over Buck's body. It stiffened as he did so, but Chris didn't care; he just bent lower and pressed his mouth to Buck's, kissing him like he would a lover and enjoying the thrill of aftermath. Then he pulled away, silent, and eased down likewise just a bed away, and turned his face toward his friend's before he closed his eyes. He could still smell Buck on him, could still feel the damp tingle on his lips and taste Buck inside his mouth.

He slept well that night, better than he had a right to given the black mark he'd laid across his soul, better than he had in days. When he woke late the next morning the sun was already up, casting long, early shadows and bright streaks of light. He smiled and wriggled, his body feeling so good, until he remembered just why it felt that way and stiffened. For long minutes he didn't turn, wouldn't look over to where Buck probably still slept. He just lay there, straining to hear. A flush heated his cheeks as he wondered whether Buck was awake, whether Buck was maybe looking at him, thinking… thinking anything at all.

But finally, when he mustered the strength to look Buck's way, all he found was an empty bunk and a rumpled bedroll, no kit beside it, no saddlebag and no boots.

The bastard had snuck out on him.

And Chris found himself relieved. Buck's bedroll was still laid out on the thin mattress, but his saddlebags and clothes were gone, and his spare boots. He'd left no note, but it wasn't like he could have gone far, not with the boss due in today with the pay they were owed. There was a town a day's ride or so away, big enough to house more than a single saloon and no doubt a few sporting women, and he felt sure he'd find Buck in among them, when he rode to look. He spent his last day alone, and thought about the story of Genesis, and the serpent in the garden, and learning something you couldn't unlearn.

-the end-


End file.
